A Heart That Serves

It lurks in the shadows, stealthily awaiting its moment to attack.

 

Make no mistake. Covid-19 is that enemy and a brazen one, an invisible aggressor that has become a scourge of the third decade of the 21^st century.

 

Dr. Leroy B. Vaughan Jr. – “Bo” to his friends – understands quite well.

 

As head epidemiologist at the Richmond’s Hunter Holmes McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the 1997 Collegiate School graduate has played a prominent role in managing the pandemic not just at his facility but at his alma mater as well.

 

Creating policy, offering counsel, and treating patients with professional and compassionate care have been a labor of love. His specialty – infectious diseases – is a true calling. The challenges, overwhelming at times, never deter him. The teamwork enriches him. The successes bring him immense satisfaction.

 

“I’m fighting this unseen microbial world,” he said. “I’m engaged in this battle that’s very real. I’ve always enjoyed it. Somebody can come into the hospital with a good chance of dying, and we can almost completely turn that around within a couple of days. That’s a big-time attraction for any doctor. I have to be honest. We have good days and bad days, but the efforts we put forth aren’t burdensome because I love what I do.”

 

Vaughan’s pursuit of a medical career began when he was quite young.

 

“The genesis of my attraction to being a doctor really started early,” he said. “I had a couple of surgeries when I was a kid so I was around a lot of doctors. If you have stars in your life, physicians were mine. Going through Collegiate, I always had an affinity for sciences, especially the health sciences. That continued through college. It was always an undergirding of my studies that I wanted to be a doctor.”

 

Vaughan found mentors on North Mooreland Road, among then Ann Griffin and Stephanie Bensinger-Franz.

 

“Mrs. Griffin’s AP biology class was hard,” he recalled. “She said, ‘Don’t fall in love with anybody in your class because it’ll completely derail you. I need all your attention.’ I gave her all my attention. I didn’t fall in love with anybody. Got an A and a 5 (the highest score) on the AP (exam).

        

“In 8^th grade English, Ms. Bensinger-Franz taught me to write using an economy of style. That really helped me write scientifically well in a concise, economic way.”

 

In 2001, Vaughan earned a BS in biology from Washington & Lee, a liberal arts institution where he took a cornucopia of courses including ancient Greek, microeconomics, European short fiction, and modern Communist China.

 

“When I was inside my major, I focused on virology and microbiology,” he said. “The seeds for infectious disease were planted there. There was a magnetism to these topics.”

 

After W&L, he took a 10-month hiatus and worked as a cook at the Teton Pines Resort in Wilson, WY.

 

“I realized, I’ve got to get real,” he said. “I knew that if I wanted to get into medicine, I couldn’t get sidetracked.”

 

Back in Richmond, he landed a job in the operating room at St. Mary’s Hospital to gain experience, then began his course of study at the VCU Medical Center in 2004.

 

“Believe it or not, I thought I might want to be a surgeon, maybe an orthopedic surgeon, strictly because I loved sports,” he said. “I played lacrosse, football, basketball, and soccer at Collegiate. You think you know what you like. Once I got to medical school, I was quickly recalibrated to early interests at W&L which was essentially infectious diseases.”

 

He did his internal medicine residency at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore where he worked with giants in the field of infectious disease including Dr. Robert R. Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His last year, he served as chief resident. It was there also that he met his wife Amanda, who’s also a physician. They have two children, Marshall and Rosalie, both Collegiate students.

 

Vaughan returned to VCU in 2012 for fellowship training in infectious diseases before accepting a position at the VA in 2013.

 

“I’m a Generation-X guy,” he said. “My parents’ generation is the Vietnam era. My grandparents fought in World War II. I’ve always had this veneration for soldiers and veterans.”

 

The Richmond VA serves 51,000 veterans in the Central Virginia and has 4,200 employees.

 

“This is not only where I started my infectious disease career as a physician,” he said, “but it’s how I started learning hospital epidemiology: How do you keep infections out of hospitals? How do you keep infections from becoming a problem for patients when they come in for something other than an infection?”

 

To say that Covid has presented enormous challenges is an understatement.

 

“We started preparing for Covid in January 2020,” he said. “We knew there was a novel coronavirus that could have pandemic potential. Between January and March when we had our first case, we moved certain assets around to prepare for a surge. We had to accumulate all the clinical information that was available at the time.”

 

Vaughan directed the establishment of a unit dedicated to Covid patients as well as a drive-through clinic for Covid testing to minimize the risk of the infection entering the facility and affecting patients and employees.

 

As Collegiate created its infection prevention plans in order to reopen, Vaughan served as a consultant.

 

“From big decisions to tiny questions, Bo provided insights, careful consideration, and a true partnership,” said Penny Evins, Head of School. “Along with Dr. Carolyn Port (P ’21, ’23), texts, calls, and emails were answered and gave me the courage and optimism to stay the course we thoughtfully crafted in partnership with colleagues, volunteers, and professionals.

 

“Knowing that so many school communities nationwide had questions and concerns, Bo agreed to serve as an expert medical advisor to NAIS on a Zoom call with hundreds of schools attending. He willingly partnered on behalf of children, educators, and the future needs of our evolving world. His leadership on a faculty/staff Zoom regarding vaccinations with Dr. Richard Jackson (P ’17, ‘19) provided facts and a calming presence.

 

“Bo models our core values of excellence and integrity. His gratitude to Collegiate inspired him to help us when he was spread thin. His reverence for Collegiate inspired us to dig deep and carefully continue to focus on our mission delivery during the complexities of the pandemic.”

 

Vaughan never doubted that with proper protocols, Collegiate could open in-person and remain so.

 

“I was convinced,” he said, “because I’d seen it in hospitals. By not opening, you create a chain reaction of many other non-infectious negative complications. Schools are not major places of transmission when you have prevention practices in place. I think Collegiate’s plan has been pretty successful.”

 

What advice would he give people now?

 

“Get the vaccine,” he said. “We can actually transform this pandemic in a shorter amount of time by adhering to vaccine compliance. For people who are high risk, make sure you don’t let your guard down as we establish herd immunity. Continue to mask in appropriate settings. Follow the CDC’s guidance. Stay up to speed with all the latest recommendations.”

What lessons can we take into the post-Covid world?

 

“The pandemic has taught us to be humble and be able to pivot,” Vaughan said.  “Scientifically speaking, we had evidence early on that certain therapies would work, but they ultimately didn’t work as well as we thought. There were early descriptions of this virus being transmitted for 14 days prior to symptom onset. That was proven not to be true. We took a certain posture based off that. 

 

“We need to be cognizant that in the middle of a pandemic, you start off conservatively, protect the greatest amount of people, and make decisions based on science. That’s a tenet that will stay with us after the pandemic.

 

“Another lesson is that it’s incredibly detrimental to socially isolate for long periods of time. That was a necessity, but we need each other, and we learned that greatly.

        

“Another thing we learned is that we’ve really done nothing before to prevent respiratory virus transmission in schools. There’ve been minimal amounts of influenza in the state of Virginia. We usually have somewhere between 50 to 80 thousand influenza deaths across the nation every year, and we really haven’t had an influenza season. I think we’ll enter the post-Covid era with more respect for respiratory viruses and infections. We’ll wash our hands more. We’ll be more cognizant of infectious pathogens.”

 

The battle continues.

 

“Infectious disease doctors have an affinity for the exotic,” Vaughan said. “We’re equipped with the knowledge to protect large volumes of people, and we like to make hard decisions in real time. We obviously don’t hope for a pandemic, but we prepare for it just as we prepare for bioweapons and bioterrorism caused by infectious agents. We just hope never to have to use the knowledge.

 

“Most of us in this field like to be able to respond to the call of duty. This is like our D-Day. You

hope you’ll step up to the plate. I think we have.”

    ~Weldon Bradshaw